Tuesday, January 31, 2012

The internet like most technological marvels of the last 50 years has contributed positively towards our growth. But like most things there’s a downside, and it appears one of the biggest downsides to the internet is its impact (adversely) on our brains—particularly for those prone to addiction.

A small study coming out of China is suggesting that people prone to Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) are more at risk of structural and functional interference in the part of the brain that regulates organization. This interference has the potential to lead to cognitive impairment similar to that caused by gambling and alcoholism addiction

Said a spokesperson for the study, “Overall, our findings indicate that Internet addiction disorder has abnormal white matter integrity in brain regions involved in emotional generation and processing, executive attention, decision making and cognitive control,” write the authors. “The results also suggest that IAD may share psychological and neural mechanisms with other types of substance addiction and impulse control disorders.”

So this does mean that people should cut back on their internet use? The answer is not clear cut. For those people who indeed struggle with IAD, the amount of internet use may need to monitored, but for the rest of us, I am sure there’s no need to avoid Facebook.

Do you worry that you may become addicted to the internet? Share your thoughts below.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

India, conventional long name Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populousdemocracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; Bhutan, the People's Republic of China and Nepal to the northeast; and Bangladesh and Burma to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; in addition, India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand and Indonesia.

Home to the ancient Indus Valley Civilization and a region of historic trade routes and vast empires, the Indian subcontinent was identified with its commercial and cultural wealth for much of its long history. Four of the world's major religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism—originated here, while Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam arrived in the first millennium CE and shaped the region's diverse culture. Gradually annexed by the British East India Company from the early 18th century and colonised by the United Kingdom from the mid-19th century, India became an independent nation in 1947 after a struggle for independence which was marked by non-violent resistance and led by Mahatma Gandhi.

The Indian economy is the world's tenth largest economy by nominal GDP and fourth largest economy by purchasing power parity. Following market-based economic reforms in 1991, India has become one of the fastest growing major economies, and is considered a newly industrialized country; however, it continues to face the challenges of poverty, illiteracy, corruption and inadequate public health. A nuclear weapons state and a regional power, it has the third-largest standing army in the world, and ranks tenth in military expenditure among nations.

India is a federal constitutional republic with a parliamentary democracy consisting of 28 states and seven union territories. It is one of the five BRICS nations. India is a pluralistic, multilingual, and multiethnic society. It is also home to a diversity of wildlife in a variety of protected habitats.

Amazing Facts about incredible India and Indians!

* India is the world's largest, oldest, continuous civilization.

* India never invaded any country in her last 10000 years of history.

* India is the world's largest democracy.

* Varanasi, also known as Benares, was called "the ancient city" when Lord Buddha visited it in 500 B.C.E, and is the oldest, continuously inhabited city in the world today.

* India invented the Number System . Zero was invented by Aryabhatta.

* The World's first university was established in Takshashila in 700BC. More than 10,500 students from all over the world studied more than 60 subjects. The University of Nalanda built in the 4th century BC was one of the greatest achievements of ancient India in the field of education.

* Sanskrit is the mother of all the European languages. Sanskrit is the most suitable language for computer software - a report in Forbes magazine, July 1987.

* Ayurveda is the earliest school of medicine known to humans. Charaka, the father of medicine consolidated Ayurveda 2500 years ago. Today Ayurveda is fast regaining its rightful place in our civilization.

* Although modern images of India often show poverty and lack of development, India was the richest country on earth until the time of British invasion in the early 17th Century. Christopher Columbus was attracted by India's wealth.

* The art of Navigation was bornin the river Sindhu 6000 years ago. The very word Navigation is derived from the Sanskrit word NAVGATIH. The word navy is also derived from Sanskrit 'Nou'.

* Bhaskaracharya calculated the time taken by the earth to orbit the sun hundreds of years before the astronomer Smart. Time taken by earth to orbit the sun: (5th century) 365.258756484 days.

* The value of pi was first calculated by Budhayana, and he explained the concept of what is known as the Pythagorean Theorem. He discovered this in the 6th century long before the European mathematicians.

* Algebra, trigonometry and calculus came from India. Quadratic equations were by Sridharacharya in the 11th century. The largest numbers the Greeks and the Romans used were 106 whereas Hindus used numbers as big as 10**53(10 to the power of 53) with specific names as early as 5000 BCE during the Vedic period. Even today, the largest used number is Tera 10**12(10 to the power of 12).

* IEEE has proved what has been a century old suspicion in the world scientific community that the pioneer of wireless communication was Prof. Jagdish Bose and not Marconi.

* The earliest reservoir and dam for irrigation was built in Saurashtra.

* According to Saka King Rudradaman I of 150 CE a beautiful lake called Sudarshana was constructed on the hills of Raivataka during Chandragupta Maurya's time.

* Chess (Shataranja or AshtaPada) was invented in India.

* Sushruta is the father of surgery. 2600 years ago he and health scientists of his time conducted complicated surgeries like cesareans, cataract, artificial limbs, fractures, urinary stones and even plastic surgery and brain surgery. Usage of anesthesia was well known in ancient India. Over 125 surgical equipment were used. Deep knowledge of anatomy, physiology, etiology, embryology, digestion, metabolism, genetics and immunity is also found in many texts.

* When many cultures were only nomadic forest dwellers over 5000 years ago, Indians established Harappan culture in Sindhu Valley (Indus Valley Civilization).

* The four religions born in India, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, are followed by 25% of the world's population.

* The place value system, the decimal system was developed in India in 100 BC.

* India is one of the few countries in the World, which gained independence without violence.

* India has the second largest pool of Scientists and Engineers in the World.

* India is the largest English speaking nation in the world.

* India is the only country other than US and Japan, to have built a super computer indigenously.

Famous Quotes on India (by non-Indians)

Albert Einstein said: We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.

Mark Twain said: India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great grand mother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only.

French scholar Romain Rolland said: If there is one place on the face of earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.

Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA said: India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border.

Everyone knows the universe is huge, but most people don't understand how huge it really is. This article will try to show the amazingly massive scale of the universe to you. It surely is a very humbling experience!

Earth - Our Home

This is our Home. All of us live, love, wage wars, spend our entire lifetimes here.

Earth compared to smaller Planets in our Solar System

Earth compared to larger Planets in our Solar System

Compared to our Sun

Our Sun compared to other Stars

Our Sun is just a tiny speck compared to other stars!

Hard to even make out in the picture with the Sun just 1 pixel wide. Jupiter becomes invisible at this scale.

Milky Way - Our Galaxy

There are 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way.

The stellar disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years in diameter, and is considered to be, on average, about 1,000 ly thick.

Our Milky Way galaxy is small compared to other galaxies. Our neighbouring Andromeda Galaxy has over one trillion stars!

The Observable Universe

This is a Hubble Ultra Deep Field image of a small region of the observable universe (equivalent sky area size shown in bottom left corner).

Each spot is a galaxy, consisting of billions of stars.There are more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe.

If you are a Rajinikanth fan, there's some good news for you! You don't need an internet connection to browse the superstar's new website. What's more? The site will stop working if you switch on your internet connection, with a prompt that says - "Aiyyo.. That was unexpected...to keep browsingswitch off your internet."

The site, which is a new initiative by Desimartini.com, certainly is allergic to internet connection. The moment you log on to that , there's only one way you can enter the site - by switching off the internet connection. The entire world of Rajinikanth - trivia, fun facts, quirky quotes etc await you, once you are off internet and logged on to 'Rajini power'.

The developers of the site inspired by the larger than life persona of Rajini, wanted to make it unique in every way possible. Amit Garg, Business Head, HT Internet said, "We wanted to give movie-lovers something interesting and new. Unlike an ordinary website, we are giving people something they've never seen before- a website that works ONLY without the internet- only a Rajini website holds the credibility to do the same!"

Rajinikanth's website works without internet

"The unbelievable spectacle of running a website without the internet is a tribute to Rajinikant's larger than life image," claimed Webchutney's creative director Gurbaksh Singh, who developed the site for Desimartini.com.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THAT SITEHow the idea came aboutRajinikanth is someone who does the impossible. And to grab attention of the online audience, you need to show them something they’ve never seen before- a website that works without the internet- and only a Rajini website holds the credibility to do the same!

ResponseAccording to desimartini.com, the website got 10,000 visits in just few hours after the launch. Users who have visited the website, have found this to be a very unique and a different concept. It’s already being talked about on Facebook and Twitter.

"The website has received a phenomenal response and has gone viral with several thousand hits and counting, along with innumerable shares and mentions across the web, especially on popular social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter," Singh said.

"After a few iterations and testing, we cracked the code required to build the world's first website that runs without the internet - a website that runs offline - which is as awesome and unbelievable as miracles and stunts associated or performed by Rajni himself," he said.